VLD: The Courtless
by tmntpunx
Summary: Shiro and Allura find solace, and something more, in one another in the wake of war and the shadows of their pasts. But navigating their flourishing relationship while leading the paladins is going to be harder than they thought, especially if Keith has anything to say about it. Shiro x Allura (Shallura) / Keith x Shiro (Sheith)
1. Chapter 1

The labyrinth wasn't real.

Though, Allura mused, pressing her bare feet to the simulated dirt, perhaps real was relative. She had not visited the holo chamber since her father's consciousness had been corrupted and subsequently lost. It felt empty, without him. The insinuation of a warm summer breeze rolled through the room, making her silver hair dance gently around her shoulders. She took a deep breath of recycled air and could almost smell the blooming flowers on the wind. She could almost taste it. Almost. Or was it just the memory of this place that gently caressed her senses? The summer was Allura's favorite time to visit the labyrinth, when the days were long and the lavandula was in bloom.

But the labyrinth had turned to ash ten thousand years ago, along with the rest of Altea.

Allura took another step, trying not to think about this place being engulfed in the flames of the Galra Empire. Instead, she took another deep breath and focused on the warm dirt beneath her feet, between her toes. It wasn't real. But it felt real. And in the big, cold black of space, a little warmth went a long way.

The labyrinth had no walls. The ground was lined with stones, making a path to follow through the dirt that led to a small stone bench at its center. The ersatz azure sky stretched on as far as Allura's eyes could see. This labyrinth was not a punishment, or a prison. This was a labyrinth for quieting the mind. It held no secrets at its center, other than the secrets the walker held within themselves.

While some Alteans had preferred a sojourn to the reflecting pools to focus on their meditation practice, Allura had always been drawn to the labyrinth. Located on the palace grounds, it had been close enough to provide refuge from the daily chaos of life in the Altean court. Even the simulation of this long lost place still gave her peace. Though the Castle of Lions was considerably quieter now than it had been millennia ago, it was just as dangerous. Allura exhaled. She needed this. Needed this moment away from the fray. Allura shook her head. _Don't think about what's out there,_ she reminded herself. _Be here, now._ Even if here was just a simulacra, and now was just a moment away from total annihilation.

But they had made it this far.

They could make it one more day on little more than hope and a corrupted Galra crystal. One more day. One more step. She put one foot in front of the other, and kept walking. She had to keep going. She had to contemplate their strategy moving forward against the Galra empire, free from the distractions of training and battle. And a certain paladin.

She took another step, and something hard pressed into the flesh of her foot. A bolt of pain raced up her spine. It sent her mind careening down a path that her body could not follow to a schism between the past and the present. The moment she watched the world break from behind the castle windows in space. The instant Altea had died without a sound. She felt it in her spine like a needle, something so sharp it barely even stung, leaving her completely numb. Her homeworld collapsing in on itself was replaced by Zarkon on the comm screen, and it was all over again.

 _No_. The word was a knife in her hands; sharp and relentless. As long as she held on, they could still fight. _We can still fight!_ But her father had refused her plea to form Voltron the day Altea burned. He had saved her, instead.

"Allura."

She was suddenly, painfully present in her body again.

"Father," she whispered, stopping dead in her tracks. " _Impossible_."

She spun on her heel and the dirt shifted beneath her feet. She scanned lavandula fields for King Alfor's face, but he was not there. Someone else darkened the door.

Shiro gave a quick, shallow bow. "Princess."

"Oh," she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.

From the look on Shiro's face as he rose, she had obviously failed. She paused, and saw her father's eyes in Shiro's, just for a moment. Shiro's eyes were dark, and her father's – her father's were the color of the Altean summer sky. But the pang of regret in them was the same.

"Oh, Shiro," she tucked an errant strand of silver hair behind her pointed ear. "I'm sorry. I thought – " she tried to shake her father's face from her thoughts." I thought you were someone else. Please. Come in."

The paladin of the black lion cut a sharp shadow at the edges of the holo chamber. He stood stiff and perpendicular to the door, arms behind his back, like a schoolboy who had been instructed to touch _nothing_. Like if he broke something, there would be consequences. Allura smiled and gestured for him to enter.

Shiro took a hesitant step forward, his eyes drifting upward to the cloud dotted horizon of the artificial blue sky. "This is nice," he said, not removing his arms from behind his back and letting them fall to his sides. "Is it Altea?"

Allura nodded.

"Is everything alright?" Allura asked.

"Oh, yeah," Shiro nodded. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, but I thought you should know some of the castle systems are still glitching. We're experiencing some minor power failures. Couldn't reach you on the comm system."

Allura stiffened. "Has there been any change in the life support systems?"

"No, nothing like that. The art grav is out on levels eleven and fourteen, and the comm system is still going in and out. Just a glitch. Nothing Coran says he can't fix," Shiro shrugged. "Or Pidge. If the grav goes out on their level and it wakes them up I'm sure they'll be all over it."

Allura felt the knot in her stomach begin to untie itself. "Of course," she smiled her most peaceable and regal smile. "We're in good hands."

Shiro smiled at her from across the field. It made her feel off balance, but in a good way. It was absurd, of course. After a lifetime of rigorous martial arts training, all this human had to do was smile at her to throw her off? She almost had to laugh.

She smiled instead. "What?"

"You're up awful late," Shiro commented.

"I could say the same to you," she crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a playfully defensive position.

As she was considering changing the holo chamber scene to something that included a reflecting pool and a full moon in the purple night sky, the smile vanished from Shiro's face. The ball was in his court but he wasn't playing. The flirtatious glint in his eyes was gone. There was something else there, now. Something darker. He didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

Allura already knew what Shiro saw when he closed his eyes. She knew how he felt, every time he opened them again. That sinking feeling in his gut. Like the world was falling away all around him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing but be dragged down with it. And she knew what followed - the flash of panic that lingered until everything came back into focus. Until the memory faded, no longer eclipsing reality.

Shiro gingerly rubbed the back of his neck with his prosthetic arm. "I don't sleep much these days."

"I understand," Allura said, quietly. "Walk with me?"

She watched Shiro shrink against the doorway. She could already feel the words forming on his lips. _I should go_. Like he'd said too much. Like he'd broken something.

"I don't sleep much these days myself," she confessed.

Shiro approached with slow and deliberate steps. Allura smiled a sad smile. She was glad for the company, even if they did not speak. They did not need to.

She continued down the path, but she did not look to the ground. Instead, her gaze drifted to the place where the lavandula fields turned to green hills, and the hills became the sky. The illusion made the holo chamber seem like it stretched on forever. A breeze rippled over the hills, making the purple flowers sway. The perfect simulation of the perfect day. Almost perfect enough to get lost in.

Allura's pointed ears perked up when Shiro took his first step in the dirt. Unlike her, he was still wearing his boots. The dirt crunched beneath Shiro's weight with each step, only heightening her awareness of his presence. She folded her hands behind her back and continued. As she rounded a corner, she caught a glimpse of Shiro out of the corner of her eye. His eyes were on her.

Allura felt a little more off balance.

She picked up the pace. It was easy enough. She had walked this labyrinth countless times back on Altea. She knew the path like she knew the Castle of Lions; every curve, every edge, every secret shortcut. But there should be no shortcuts in the labyrinth. Not if you wanted to do it right. In the labyrinth, there should only be a singular path to contemplation. She wondered what Shiro was contemplating, now. Was he thinking about the things that kept him up at night? Or - she bit her lip. Was he thinking about her?

She picked up her skirt so it did not drag in the dirt, even though the dirt was not real. It was a habit that had become second nature after years of storming out of the castle after cabinet meetings, and then, at the end, the war room. The dirt wasn't real. None of this was real. But it felt good.

And Allura only wanted a glimpse of feeling good. After a lifetime of service, was that too much to ask? Maybe it was. Of course it was. Leadership was sacrifice. Allura steeled herself. That was the nature of it. Her father had given everything to keep Voltron from the Galra Empire. His planet. A life with his family. A life at all. And now she would never see him again. A wave of sadness washed over Allura. She took another step. And then another.

Grief was like the tides. It was never really disappeared, only came and went. Even when it seemed out of sight, it was never too far from the shore. But this was not the time for grief. The Galra were upon them, and her father's fight was far from over. But now - Voltron was whole again. _She_ had hope again. Maybe that had to be enough.

But when she was with Shiro, she wanted something more. Something tangible. Something she could hold in her hands. It was foolish and Allura knew it, so she forced her gaze back to walking the labyrinth. That was why she was here. To focus. To find her center once again. Shiro was making that difficult. But she knew she could. She had to.

They weren't going to win this war if she let her distractions get the better of her.

She swept her skirt up under her when she arrived at the center, and the small stone bench that had been there since before she was born. It might still be on Altea now, if the Galra hadn't lit the world on fire. She closed her eyes, dismissing the thought from her mind. Beneath her, the stone was warm from the sun. _Be here, now_ , she told herself silently. _That's what matters_.

It seemed like Shiro was sitting beside her in the blink of an eye. There was something to be said for his strong frame and long legs. Allura tried not to think about it. Tried not to look at him. She knew if she did, her eyes would linger too long in all the socially inappropriate places. She had lost focus more than once observing the paladins in training, just looking at him. Watching the way his body moved. Shiro was long and lean, swift as a sword and twice as powerful. And that was when he wasn't using the Galra tech grafted to his body.

Coran had commented on how far away she seemed, watching Shiro. Her Altean companion didn't _know_ she was watching Shiro, or if he did, he had never commented on it specifically. She had blamed it on long days, and even longer nights, and he had not probed any further. Coran had lost just as much as she had. He was there when the world burned.

But what had Shiro lost to gain that Galra tech? Allura suspected it was more than just his arm. The scar that lined his face was only the beginning. She had seen his shoulders. Her eyes had lingered on the place where flesh met Galra tech more than once while the paladins had suited up. His body was scored with scars, a legacy of everything he had survived, etched in flesh. She wondered if it hurt - all those reminders of everything he could not remember. Maybe it was better that way. She wrung her hands in her lap, gathering the fabric of her dress between her fingers. Maybe it was better just to forget.

"This place is beautiful," he said, again. As if all of a sudden, he had nothing else to say. "Did you come here often?"

"Yes," said Allura. "It's beautiful this time of year, when the lavandula is in bloom," she continued casually, as if she was talking about something that still existed.

Like lavandula was something that you could just walk outside and see, and touch, instead of something that only existed in this chamber within the Castle of Lions. And even then, it was not real, only beams of coherent light bent just the right way.

She smiled sadly. "The engineers never could quite get the smell right."

"Smells kind of like lavender to me," Shiro said, simply.

"Lavender?" she turned to him.

He shifted his weight on the bench beside her. "It's a plant, back on Earth. Purple, like your lavandula," he smiled, and his scar crinkled at the edges. "People use it for all sorts of stuff. Put it in lotion, that sort of thing. Most people find the smell soothing."

Allura nodded in agreement and dug her bare feet into the red was very soothing.

"Some people like lavender in food, too. Sweets, stuff like that," Shiro continued. "But that stuff always just tasted like soap to me."

Allura burst into laughter then covered her mouth with her hand. "Humans eat soap?"

"Well, no. I mean, they're not supposed to," Shiro cracked a grin. "But stranger things have happened."

"Do _you_ eat soap?" Allura leaned in a little closer.

Shiro laughed, and she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. It felt like summer. _Real_ summer. Shiro shook his head as his laughter trailed off into a tremulous smile.

"Do you miss it?" she asked quietly.

Shiro arched a brow. "Lavender?"

"Earth."

Shiro looked away from her as a simulation of a gentle breeze rolled through the holo chamber. It was not real, but she savored it anyway. There was no breeze in space, only the suffocating vacuum created by unfortunate instances of depressurization, which were to be avoided at all costs, in Allura's opinion. She decided instead to focus her thoughts on the imitation Altean summer, even if it didn't smell quite right.

"I don't miss it like they do," he said.

 _Maybe that's a good thing_ , Allura thought. Voltron had almost come apart because of the paladins' struggles with being separated from their home world. She had almost lost everything, all over again.

"I mean, they all miss it for their own reasons. Just like they all miss different things," Shiro leaned back on the bench. "Pidge's call to find their family is a strong one, but maybe it's a problem solved by a continued assault on the Galra Empire. If we hit hard enough, we could crack the whole thing open."

Allura nodded.

"And Hunk misses Earth, too," Shiro went on.

She nodded again. She had overheard Hunk talking about the ocean one morning, over breakfast.

"But he misses Shay more. Maybe that's enough to keep him here."

"For now," Allura added, quietly.

"But the way Lance talks about the sky? And the rain?"

"Rain?" Allura arched a brow, momentarily befuddled. Then she remembered. "Oh, yes! Rain. Of course. That magic water that falls from the sky," she said, matter of factly.

That made him smile.

"Yeah, there's nothing like it."

"There's nothing like it? Not in the entire universe?" she asked a little cheekily, gesturing dramatically to the holographic lavandula field before them.

"Nope," Shiro said stoutly.

Rain. That could only be found back on Earth. Allura felt knots starting to tie themselves in her stomach again at the thought of the paladins returning to Earth. No. That couldn't be. There had to be other planets where it rained, Allura reasoned. She waited for Shiro to continue, but he just sort of trailed off into the illusion of the lavandula fields. He didn't say a thing about Keith. But there was something about the red paladin's recklessness that told her he had nowhere to go back to. She knew how he felt, and she wondered...did Shiro feel the same?

"Nothing like it in the entire universe, and you don't miss it?" she asked quietly.

"Well, I miss when things made sense," Shiro shrugged his shoulders. "But when I went back to Earth, the Garrison treated me like I wasn't even human. If Keith hadn't - " Shiro stopped to take a deep breath. He did not look at his Galra prosthetic, but Allura noticed how its metal fingers twitched in his lap. "I was willing to give up everything to get back to Earth. But If Keith hadn't intervened who knows what they would have done with me."

Allura placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe it was a good thing. Helped me realize that what I'm looking for isn't back there," Shiro shrugged again. "Not anymore."

Allura withdrew her hand. He was making this too easy and a thousand times harder all at once. The temptation to lean in closer flared up again as if she had been stung by the notion. All of a sudden it was something too hot and too tender to ignore. It would have been so easy. She only had to say the words. _What are you looking for, then?_ The words clamored silently at the tip of her tongue. Was it her? Or was it revenge? There was some small part of her that hoped it was the former, though she knew the feeling was just as dangerous as any Galra fleet. She was loathe to admit that she understood the latter all too well herself. That ache for revenge burned silently inside her, too. The Galra empire had to be destroyed. If it wasn't, Altea would not be the only world to die without a sound.

"Do you want to talk about Altea?"

Allura took a deep breath. "What about Altea?"

"You tell me," Shiro prompted gently. "You're its Princess."

" _Princess_ ," Allura echoed before she began to laugh bitterly. "I am no princess. Altea is gone. My people are gone. I preside over no court, now."

"What about your paladins?" Shiro bumped gently into Allura's shoulder. "You're our princess."

Allura raised a silver brow at her companion.

"There's no way we could do this without you," he said.

"Flatterer."

Allura turned to face him and smiled her sad had only been brought together by war. And in the end, all wars were the same. They tore everything asunder.

"It's true," Shiro insisted.

A flicker of hope flared inside her, and Allura almost forgot about war. Shiro was so handsome. It made it easy to overlook his strange ears. She returned his smile, despite herself. "Yes, but _you_ are their leader, Black Paladin."

"We can lead them together."

Allura felt her heart skip.

Something jerked in the corner of her eye. She forced herself to look away from Shiro and watched as the image of the lavandula field sputtered around them. The hologram faltered. Cold metal tore through the image of the azure Altean sky. The lavandula stopped swaying in the breeze and became unnaturally still in an instant, before the long purple stocks became blocks of pixels suspended in midair. And then she was falling. The stone bench that had only ever been made of light turned to pixels beneath them, and then to nothing. Her chest tightened as Altea disappeared again before her eyes. And Allura fell – right onto Shiro.

Allura's eyes met Shiro's. Her heart hit her ribs hard, and even though the warmth of Altean summer had vanished, replaced by the cool metal of the holo chamber dome, she felt hot and flushed.

Her gaze followed the length of the scar across his face, and she stifled the impulse to reach out and run a finger along it. But she knew that could only lead to one thing: more. She knew how quickly a single finger across his face could become a hand cupping his cheek, drawing him closer. She yearned for that closeness, and the contact it promised; something warm and intimate in the unending frigid black of space. The heat rose in her cheeks thinking about it. But she did not have his permission. So she did not touch him. Instead, she leaned back in a reluctant attempt to put some distance between her body from his, her skirts rustling around the both of them.

Shiro coughed. "Guess it's not just the gravity that's glitching tonight."

"We should let Coran know the holo chamber is crashing," Allura cleared her throat. "It may be related to the other system failures."

"Right," said Shiro hurriedly. "Of course."

They began to untangle themselves. Shiro righted himself effortlessly. Instead of letting her gaze drift up the length of Shiro's legs, Allura looked at her skirts. She brushed her hands over her lap to smooth the wrinkles from her dress. And as she gathered her skirts to stand, he offered her his hand.

Allura felt her lips part in a smile.

Shiro was right. They could lead the paladins, _together_. As her fingers entwined with his, she realized that she had been wrong. Perhaps a distraction was just what she needed, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, you gonna spill the beans or what?"

Shiro glanced up from his breakfast bowl of flavorless green stuff. "Exactly what beans are you referring to, Pidge?"

"Come _on,"_ Pidge slid onto the mess hall bench beside Shiro. "Spill 'em!"

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," Shiro shoveled another spoonful into his mouth. Grimaced. Swallowed. He hadn't been entirely honest with Allura last night. He did miss Earth. But mostly because of the food. Even the Kerberos mission food cubes were better than Altean cuisine.

"Come _on_!" Pidge's face lit up. "You and Allura left the holo chamber together last night."

Shiro laughed. "That's an interesting rumor."

"Fact. Not rumor," Pidge held up a single finger.

"Yeah, the _mice_ told them," a cheerful voice added as Hunk joined them at the mess hall table.

"Well, they didn't really tell me per say," Pidge went on, gesturing with their spoon as they spoke. Shiro's stomach lurched a little as green goo slid down the spoon handle. "I overheard them talking about it."

Shiro gave Pidge a quizzical look.

Pidge shrugged. "I developed a translator."

"Don't tell Coran that," Shiro chuckled. "He'll be asking them to make sandwiches all day."

"I wouldn't mind a sandwich right about now," Pidge sighed, watching the green Altean goo continue its slow, lugubrious slide to the handle of their spoon.

"Same," added Hunk, though his spoon clattered loudly on the rim of an empty bowl.

"Don't change the subject, Shiro," Pidge said, scraping half of their green goo into Hunk's bowl. "What were you doing with Allura in the holo chamber last night?"

" _Nothing!"_ Shiro laughed. "Did you tell everyone about this?" he gave Pidge a look.

"Don't blame me!" Pidge cried. "It was the mice – "

"Yeah, man," Hunk's eyes narrowed incredulously. "Didn't I tell you to keep on eye on those mice? _They're always._ _ **Watching**_."

"You two are ridiculous," Shiro sighed.

"But – " Pidge began.

Shiro gave them the look again. "Where are Keith and Lance?"

"I think Keith's already wailing on some of those training bots," Hunk replied between mouthfuls of Pidge's unwanted breakfast. "Lance is probably still in the showers."

Pidge shrugged, nonplussed.

Lance was the sort of cadet who took showers before _and_ after drills. At first this had struck Shiro as incredibly wasteful, until he remembered that Coran's saying something about how all of the water made and used on the Castle of Lions was recycled. _All_ of the water. He wondered if anyone had told Lance yet.

"If he's late you are all doing warmups until he gets to the training hall. Understood?"

Pidge and Hunk groaned in harmony.

"I'm serious," Shiro said. He pointed to Pidge. "Eat your breakfast."

Pidge glowered at him.

"I mean it," Shiro smiled his most paternal smile. "You'll need your strength."

"You are insufferable," Pidge mumbled as Shiro swung his leg over the bench.

"Aw, come on Pidge, don't say that about Shiro," Hunk finished off his second bowl of breakfast. "We love Shiro."

Pidge sighed, but Shiro was too far from the mess hall table to hear it.

As the doors slid open, Shiro glanced back over his shoulder. Hunk was attempting to fly a spoon full of green goo into Pidge's mouth like a small spacecraft. Pidge's mouth remained closed. The edges of Shiro's mouth crept up into a small smile. _Guess I'm not the only one who misses Earth food_ , he unsavory as Altean food was, Shiro was glad Pidge and Hunk were sharing the experience together. That they had each other. None of them were going to make it through this alone.

The doors closed automatically behind him as he stepped into the corridor.

The Castle of Lions was preternaturally quiet when he wasn't with the rest of the team. Sometimes it made his skin prickle and turn to gooseflesh. Sometimes it was nice, just to be alone, and feel the silence wash over him, like the tide at night, it was easy to imagine that it went on forever. Until one of the doors opened and the cadets came spilling out. Shiro picked up his pace down the hall.

A pair of mice skittered along the baseboards in the opposite direction. His eyes narrowed as they passed. _Probably on their way to the mess_ , he thought. If Pidge and Hunk kept up their antics, he was sure there would be a veritable minefield of green goo for the mice to chow down on when they arrived. Shiro's face settled into a frown. If what the mice had seen really had been nothing, why hadn't he just said so?

"I did say so," he muttered to no one but himself.

 _Pidge just didn't believe me_ , he thought, sighing. _They're way too smart for their own damn good._ He wondered if they would be reading his and Allura's com logs next. It was a public messaging system on the ship, but still. Shiro shook his head. _Nothing is going on between you and Allura_.

"Nothing," he muttered, hoping there were no mice within earshot.

He didn't need them thinking he was crazy, too.

His thoughts drifted to the night his stolen Galra craft had crashed on Earth. How those troops had strapped him to a table. Told him to calm down. He took a deep breath. Shiro had learned something critical that night. He had learned that telling anyone on the edge to calm down only ever pushes them over that edge. His chest tightened at the thought of those restraints, the feeling of their eyes on him, lingering on the Galra prosthetic he had never wanted; the Galra tech he had needed to survive.

He shoved his prosthetic hand into his trouser pocket as he walked. He never would have made it off the Galra ship without it. He knew that. He had fought tooth and artificial claw to get off that ship, and when he had finally managed to make it home – the welcome wagon had just thought he was crazy.

Shiro frowned. Maybe he was. Maybe he was paranoid, thinking that Pidge would be trolling the comm logs for something juicy. _Of course you're being paranoid_ , he thought. There were a thousand more infinitely interesting things for Pidge to occupy themselves with on the ship. His comm exchanges with Allura probably hadn't even come up. _Yet_ , his brow furrowed. Pidge was just as curious as they were intelligent. But even if their curiosity led to the comm logs between him and Allura, Pidge wouldn't find anything. There was nothing to find.

Because there was nothing going on between him and Allura.

Right?

He tried to recall the last thing they had chatted about before last night. If he could even call it that. He and Allura clogged the comm relays from time to time, but never with anything personal. Their messaging typically pertained to scheduling. Sometimes strategy, though that was rare in the event that the Castle of Lions was boarded. Though he had tried to contact her last night, before the system crashed. When he couldn't locate her whereabouts, he had been skewered by a spike of panic.

The first message had been perfectly innocuous, something about the the art grav experiencing failures across multiple levels. But when he hadn't heard back from her, he had sent her a message, almost without thinking.

 _Allura. Where are you?_

He wondered what Pidge would make of that.

Nothing. Because there was nothing to make of it. Shiro nodded to no one as he rounded the last corner down the hall. The training hall doors slid open before him and he stepped through them.

Each step he took echoed loudly in the vast chamber, but he was not alone. An armored figure was sparring with one of the castle drones in the entered unnoticed. Keith was clad in head to toe black armor. If he looked away from the fight upon Shiro's entry, the black visor on the helmet masked the movement of his eyes. Shiro pressed a finger against wall touch panel to select his weapon. The written Altean was over his head, but thankfully there were visual aids. Shiro selected a short sword.

The wall ejected his weapon like a vending machine relieving itself of a candy bar. Shiro turned the hilt in his hand, let his eyes wander along the spine of the deadly blade. Apparently Alteans didn't believe in practice weapons. Only practice. In the arena, Keith was grappling with the drone.

Keith parried with a short sword similar to the one in Shiro's hand. Shiro cocked a brow. Why wasn't Keith using his bayard? His arm fell to his side, almost aching for the bayard that had never been there.

"Keith!" Shiro shouted, raising the short sword above his head. "Ready to step it up?"

Keith gracefully sidestepped the drone, not skipping a beat. The drone did not stop. It lunged forward, blade drawn. But with a snap of Keith's fingers, the drone collapsed on the floor. Shiro blinked in surprise. He had never seen them do that before, but the fail safe made sense. Keith had spent hours sparring with the drones. He would know. Shiro took a step closer and realized, Keith wasn't Keith. The armored figure pulled off their helmet, and Allura's silver hair spilled over her shoulders.

"Was that a challenge?" she returned his smirk and cocked a hip.

"Ah – " he tried to say her name, but his mouth refused to make words as his eyes watched her,

Roll her helmet down her side, resting it between her arm and her hip.

She tapped the flat of her short short blade against her thigh. "Think you can do better, Paladin?"

"Princess," Shiro stammered, as he slid the short sword into a holster strapped around his thigh and nearly missed.

"Good morning, Shiro," she smiled.

She looked at him with those bright blue eyes and his hand was instantly clammy in his gloves. "Good morning," he replied. Afterwards, he was not sure he had actually said the words aloud.

He had never seen her in black before. Allura was a light in the dark; she wore white. Black was a Galra color. He instinctively clenched his prosthetic fingers into a fist.

Standing beside her, Shiro was hardly surprised he had mistaken her for Keith from across the room. The black armor concealed her hourglass shape, and the paladin and the Princess had a surprisingly similar combat style. They both moved with a fierce elegance, fueled by a fire inside that would never go out. But while Keith was prone to lashing out with his bayard blade, Allura responded to pressure like a diamond - it only made her brighter.

"What?" Allura laughed.

If Shiro had known better, he might have thought she was nervous.

She shifted her weight. "You're staring."

"Black suits you," he replied.

"It's a prototype of Coran's kinetic armor," Allura cleared her throat. "Hence it only comes in one color, I'm afraid. But it does track movement, highlight areas of improvement, that sort of thing."

Shiro almost had to laugh. As if Allura had any areas that needed improvement. "Does it come in Pidge to Hunk sizes?"

She answered him with a shake of her head. It was all fun and games until she casually pointed her short sword in Shiro's direction. "So."

"So what?"

"Are you going to answer my question?" She tilted her head to the side, just so. When people made that motion, it usually made Shiro think of birds. When Allura did it, it was almost predatory. "Was that a challenge?"

Shiro opened his mouth to speak, but instead of making words his lips barely parted, unable to move as he watched a single bead of sweat roll down her throat and disappear beneath the neck of her underarmor.

"Shiro?"

Shiro exhaled and his breath became a gentle chuckle.

"What?" Allura demanded, voice sharp.

He raised his Galra prosthetic arm. "I think I've got a bit of an unfair advantage."

"You didn't seem to think you had an unfair advantage when you thought I was _Keith_." Allura crossed her arms over her chest indignantly.

Shiro nodded and hung his head. "You're right."

"If you'd like to level the playing field…" she paused. "Here - give me your sword!"

Shiro unsheathed the short sword at his thigh and handed it to Allura hilt first, careful not to touch her. She left him standing at the edge of the ring, scratching his head with a robotic finger. When she returned, she held up two pairs of black boxing gloves and a roll of tape. She offered him a pair before she began to wrap her hands in the stuff.

"So I can't use my Galra hand," Shiro noddedd. "Very clever, Princess."

"Now we're even. If there was ever any doubt." Allura gestured to the ring with the thumb of one of her gloves. "Shall we?"

Shiro extended his arm before her. "After you."

Allura smacked her gloves together officiously and the floor of the ring opened, swallowing the recumbent drone. Shiro met her in the middle of the ring. She turned to him, eyes blazing brightly. He threw on his most confident smirk before they bowed curtly to one another.

Their gloves met, and Shiro's smirk vanished from his face. Allura threw the first blow with a quick low body kick, striking him in the side. Shiro lunged back at her, gloves first, but she evaded him easily, eyes still shining. She knew he hadn't tried to hit her, just knock her off balance.

"Don't hold back, Takahashi."

The way she said his name send a shiver down his spine, like a cold compress after a long, hard fight.

"As you wish, Princess."

He threw a kick and she caught his foot in between her gloves, pushing him back. He found his balance again and smirked at her, hoping she would not realize how woefully out of practice he was. He had spent a year in the Galra coliseum as a gladiator; he had strength and speed on his side, but his technique was a mess. In the ring champions did what it took to survive, not keep up best practices. And it was allowing Allura to predict his every move. He pitched forward towards her, faking an uppercut. Allura threw her gloves up to block him and he threw another low body kick that connected with her hip, hard.

"That's more like it," she grinned at him.

It made him feel like he was on fire.

And they were just getting started. She kicked him hard in the gut and he tightened his core to keep from keeling backwards. He sidestepped her next kick, and they began to dance, gloves up, shielding their faces. For each step Shiro took, Allura took two. He leaned left, she leaned right, like a shadow, always mirroring his movements. His heart began to race.

Allura threw a high kick, striking his ribs. He grimaced and fell back. She advanced without hesitation. Without apology. Her gloves were in his face again in an instant, but Shiro blocked. He felt his Galra hand burning under his glove. Though his armor stifled its purple light, he could feel it, burning bright and aching to strike. If his prosthetic could tear through Galra sentry bots like they were made of paper, the padded fabric of his glove would prove no obstacle. And neither would Allura. He took a deep breath and brought his arms back in, gloves close. He had to control it.

His defensive position only spurred Allura on. Shiro took a few sharp steps backwards and she followed as quickly and easily as if they were dancing. But if this was a dance, Allura was leading. She always was. So much so that it made it easy to forget how young she was. The burden of leadership weighed heavily on her shoulders. He could see it written in her features, in the sadness in her face, and the diamond hardness of her beautiful eyes. She had already lost so much.

And failure was no longer an option.

Her glove slammed into his ear and suddenly he was seeing double. He swore as they both fell back. Shiro squinted as two Alluras raised four black gloves in front of their faces. He felt something hot and wet dripping down his neck. He squeezed one eye shut and two Alluras became one. He took a deep breath. Using his height to his advantage, he struck her in the neck with a swift kick. As Allura gasped Shiro felt his stomach lurch.

But her words echoed at the back of his mind. _Don't hold back, Takahashi_.

Shiro seized his opening and threw another hard kick, but Allura righted herself and came back grinning. He didn't even have time to squeeze out another swear before realizing he had made a critical error. It was too late. His body was already in motion, careening towards her. Right before his leg made contact with her side, she caught his calf with one gloved hand, and pushed his torso back with the other. Shiro's back hit the floor with a thunderous clap.

Shiro groaned.

Allura stood over him, smiling. He tried to smile. He _wanted_ to smile back, but his face contorted as he tried to breathe. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm, still but she was still gleaming - _beaming_ from her victory. Shiro's heart rate refused to slow. It would have helped if he could breathe. But Allura was still standing over him, and she had never been more beautiful.

Her silver hair clung to the sweat on her brow and flushed cheeks. As her shoulders heaved with every breath, Shiro wondered what readings her kinetic armor was generating, now. Was her heart rate as high as his was? Her breathing just as shallow? He smiled and wondered if her heart rate was spiking, too, despite being completely still. Would this moment be fixed in time in numbers, unnaturally high and utterly inexplicable to anyone but the two of them?

"Oh snap," came a familiar voice.

Or the entire team.


	3. Chapter 3

Allura straightened herself above Shiro, prostrate on the floor of the ring, and turned to face the paladins directly. She put on her most amiable regal smile and tried not think about how sweaty she was. "Good morning, paladins."

The team stood at the doorway in a semi-circle. Allura wondered when they had arrived. A bead of sweat dripped down her face and she resisted the impulse to wipe it away. How long had they been watching her and Shiro spar?

"You warming Shiro up for us, Princess?" Keith grinned.

Allura felt herself the heat rose in her face like a slow burn, she realized it wasn't just from the cardio.

"Are we interrupting?" Lance shouted. "Inquiring minds want to know."

"Does this mean training is cancelled?"

"Hunk!" Keith growled, elbowing his companion in the side.

As Hunk groaned Shiro's exhalation became a sigh of exasperation. Allura shook her head and smiled. She hadn't even heard the doors open.

"Now I _know_ you weren't telling the truth about last night,Shiro," Pidge added.

"Pidge," Shiro protested, awkwardly righting himself. Allura watched as he peeled off his boxing gloves. His eyes were glued to the ground as he tied them together, avoiding the team's gaze. He took a deep breath, then slung the gloves over his broad shoulders.

"It's called _lying_ , Pidge," Lance corrected. "I thought you were the smart one."

Pidge rolled their eyes. "I was being polite."

The paladins filed into the training room, their attention on one another, and not Allura or Shiro. At least for the present moment. Allura exhaled in relief.

They were so young. A smile tugged at the edge of their lips as she watched them cajole each other. All of the paladins carried themselves with the of brash self-satisfaction of adolescence, and smiles that said they were ready to take on any risk, even though there was no way they could possibly understand the consequences. Though they were all wise beyond their years. Lance blew a raspberry at Pidge and Allura's face faltered. _Most_ of them were wise beyond their years. They had all adapted to the mantel Voltron had thrust on them with grace, even though they still complained about early morning training sessions. It was a concession Shiro seemed willing to give them in exchange for continued improved performance, but Allura was not so lenient. She had lived in the shadow of the Galra empire her whole life; she knew what was expected of the paladins in time of war.

The Galra empire was a nightmare made flesh, made ever more insatiable and destructive by Zarkon's desire for power and control. And it had only gotten worse since they had destroyed Altea. The paladins were too young to know, too anew to the universe and so painfully, sweetly human. Everything was new to them. They did not know. How could they? Other than Shiro, none of the paladins had seen the stars on anything but astronomical charts before they found the Blue Lion. How could they know what stars had been swallowed by the Galra, and the pall of endless night that trailed in the wake of their warships?

They smiled as they assembled and stretched, and bantered, awaiting Shiro's instruction. Their lives had not been fractured by the Galra the way hers had. The way Shiro's had. They did not know loss, the way the two of them did. The losses of the paladins lives were still illuminated by hope, and the promise of discovery, and possibility that maybe _someday_ those wrongs could be righted. Or that the answers they sought would still reveal themselves. Allura's loss was a phantom limb; she felt the weight of everything that was gone, even though it was no longer there, and never would be again. She held on to hope because that was all that was left.

But together, they were Voltron. Together, they had hope. And that had to be enough.

"I'll leave you to it," she said to the paladins, though her eyes lingered on Shiro.

"You sure you don't wanna stick around, Princess?" Lance flexed casually in his armor. "Check out my moves?"

"Don't encourage him," Keith said, sourly.

Allura suppressed a laugh. "Perhaps another time."

"Let me walk you out," Shiro offered, and Allura felt her shoulders snap back reflexively.

She wondered what sort of readings her armor was picking up, now, with Shiro so close.

The two crossed the training room in companionable silence. A chorus of high pitched baiting sounds arose from the paladins behind them, but Shiro shot a glance over his shoulders, glaring daggers at the group of teenagers. The training room got a lot quieter after that, but Allura expected they were still talking amongst themselves. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but still, she smiled. It was just as well. She didn't want them to hear what she was going to say next.

"They think there's something going on between us," Shiro said, quietly, as he pressed a hand against the wall. It opened soundlessly and he hung up his gloves.

Allura let out a chuckle. "You don't say."

"That would be ridiculous," Shiro almost smiled.

"Oh of course," Allura hung her own gloves up, and the wall swallowed both pairs without a sound. "Absolutely absurd."

"Yeah."

Allura met Shiro's gaze and saw the disappointment in his dark eyes. She forced herself to stifle the smile threatening to break across her face, bright and inevitable as the sunrise. It was just as she had hoped.

"You did well back there, Shiro," she extended her hand for a congratulatory shake.

Shiro paused, and his eyes searched her face. Allura looked him up and down and understood his hesitation at once. To take her outstretched hand would mean he would have to touch her with his Galra prosthetic. His mechanical fingers almost trembled. Allura smiled and extended her left hand instead. They shook hands.

His skin was warm, but his palm and fingers were rough with callouses; the mark of a pilot, and a paladin. Her fingers lingered at his rough edges.

"Let's do this again," she smiled.

Shiro nodded. "Any time, Princess."

Their hands were still interlocked. As he began to drift away she felt a flicker of dismay flare inside her. She did not want to let go, but she felt the paladins' eyes on them, even now from across the room. So she squeezed his hand softly. She hoped it seemed sportsman like.

"I'm going to the pool for a cool down," she murmured, looking away from Shiro and towards the door. "Perhaps I'll see you there later?"

When she glanced back at him, his eyes were wide. Her lips bloomed into a smile, and she walked out the door without another word.

Allura made her way to the pool on auto-pilot, her skin prickling beneath her armor at the mere possibility of Shiro joining her. A smile tugged at the edges of her lips thinking about him, and the feeling that was spreading over her skin like an electrical storm rolling over the plains. The perspiration from the mornings sparring had cooled. She shuddered and rubbed her arms with her bare hands, eager to swap her armor for something dry, if only just to get wet all over again.

She slipped into the locker room adjacent to the pool and shed her armor. The flex bracers hit the tiled floor with a dull thud. The moisture wicking fabric peeled away from her clammy skin and she shuddered again as her skin gradually became exposed to the air. Her hair, matted with sweat, clung to her neck, errant strands clinging to her clavicles. She let it loose, shook it out and piled it back on top of her head again, careful not to catch it on her tiara. She paused.

Was there even a reason to wear it any longer?

A princess with no planet to speak of hardly needed a crown. She ran her finger along the metal, pausing over the gem in the center. Her birthstone. Her father had had it commissioned for her coronation as the heir to the throne. Instead of Altea, she had inherited a war, and the mantle of Voltron. But it was a mantle she no longer had to bear alone, even if her father was gone forever. Allura took a deep breath.

She slipped into a swimsuit and swung up into the pool.

The warm water of the recessed ceiling pool enveloped her. Allura kicked off the edge and made her first lap. Her muscles burned as she spurred herself onward, emerging only briefly for quick gasps of air. She made one more lap. And then another. She went until her arms felt so heavy she could barely lift them for one more stroke. She went until her legs felt like they were on fire. She went until her short sharp breaths became ragged gasps for air.

And when she could go no more, she let go. Allura's body drifted slowly to the surface. Her head emerged from of the pool, and she issued a command to the computer to dim the lights. Everything went dark outside of the blue light of the pool, and she let her body hang upside down, suspended by the water all around her. She closed her eyes, and let herself be weightless.

With a soft tug she undid her bun and her silver hair spilled around her shoulders, dancing in the water. She sighed as the pressure from keeping her hair up abated, and it became weightless like everything else in that moment. She kicked at the water lazily with no intention of moving, just maintaining her position. When she opened her eyes, she stared blankly at the floor. She almost felt like a child. She had always loved hanging upside in the pool as a child. She had done so after every swimming lesson, before her father used to reach for her, and bring her back down.

Without thinking, her hand drifted from beneath the surface back to her tiara. She pulled until it came free of her forehead. Holding it in both hands, she ran a thumb over her green birthstone. The Ayu's Eye was cool and smooth to the touch. Her father had always said it looked beautiful against her brown skin. She almost smiled as she turned the golden circlet to catch the light. She felt strange without it on her brow. Naked. Yet, relieved.

What need would the universe have for a princess without a planet when this war was done? She traced the edge of the metal, following its curve back to the center. What would she do if she survived? Coran was a career engineer. His diploma was a few millenia out of date, but she was sure he could still hold his own out in the universe. He could find work. He could make another life, somewhere in the reaches of space. But she had only ever been a princess.

And then, the door opened. Her heart leapt in her chest. _Shiro_?

She felt her tiara fall from her hands, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her eyes widened as the metal clattered loudly on the floor.

"I'm sorry Princess. I didn't mean to startle you."

Allura's breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes searched the dark for what her heart hoped might be there. But it was not Shiro. Keith stood at the doorway in his red swim trunks. Allura felt her heart sink. The weightlessness of being in the pool fell away, replaced by the heaviness of disappointment.

"It's fine, really," Allura said, gathering her hair up in her hands to get it back under control. "I was just…lost in thought," she explained, trying not to be dishonest. Or sound too disheartened. Instinctively, she went brushed a finger over her brow to push her circlet back into place. But it was not there.

She lowered herself to the floor. Keith stood beneath the pool with a towel draped around his shoulders. He bent for her circlet just as she began to reach for it. When he handed it to her, his dark eyes met hers.

"Thank you," Allura murmured, slipping her tiara back on her brow. The metal band caught in her wet hair and made her flinch. She could not remember the last time that had happened. Perhaps that was because she could not remember the last time she had taken it off.

Keith stood below the pool in silence, his lean form casting a long shadow across the floor and up the wall. The blue light reflecting from above them danced between them. She gave the wall a gentle press and it issued her a towel. It was soft and warm in her hands. The red paladin gazed at her with his dark eyes.

"How did training go?" she asked, piling her hair into a bun.

"Fine," Keith shrugged. "Hunk's marks are finally starting to improve."

"That's good," Allura smiled. Lance had been a natural with a blaster rifle; so had Pidge (thanks to something they called "video games"). But Hunk had struggled with his marksmanship since he arrived at the Castle of Lions. It was good to hear he was making progress. Shiro, however, was an unparalleled shot. She almost allowed her thoughts to wander to how their sparring match would have transpired if they had thrown weapons into the mix.

"You really put Shiro through the ringer, though," Keith added. "He was pretty out of it after you left."

"I really gave him a run for his groggeries, didn't I?" Allura's grin widened as she slung her towel around her waist. She cinched the towel into a knot at her hip and looked up to find that Keith did not return her smile. "I'll try to be gentler next time," she added.

"I'm glad we're on the same page," Keith said, cooly.

The smile faded from Allura's face. "I beg your pardon?"

"About Shiro." He slid his hands into the pockets of his swim trunks, but still, he held her gaze with no remorse. The blue light reflecting off the surface of the pool danced over his face, bringing no warmth to it.

Allura watched as his stance widened. Was he standing his ground? Her hand drifted to where her towel hung around her hips, suddenly feeling entirely too exposed. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said.

"With how much he's been through, we can't - " Keith began, his voice rising. Allura swallowed. Something flickered in Keith's eyes. Allura took a step back. In a flash, he almost didn't look human. He looked like something else entirely.

 _Impossible_ , she thought, watching in horror as his pupils turned to slits. _It can't be._ Her breath caught in her throat, waiting for his eyes to turn yellow, like theirs. Allura's hand drifted to her hip, where her bayard would have been. If she were a paladin, instead of the princess of a planet lost to fire and time. Her hand curled into a fist.

Keith jerked his face away from her, diverting his gaze to the ground. He exhaled sharply. Ran a hand through his dark hair. When he looked up again, he looked like himself. Like a human. Allura swallowed.

"What are you?" Allura's whispered.

"Someone who cares about Shiro. Like you, " Keith met her gaze, and she did not doubt him. But she did not trust him. "We need to-" he halted himself just as quickly as he began, to take another deep breath.

His hesitation let her slide in like a knife.

"Need to what?" Allura interrupted. "Be gentle?" she asked, no longer joking with him.

"That's not what I was gonna say," Keith replied, his voice low.

The Altean princess straightened herself. "No one out there is going to be gentle with any of us," her hand shot out, pointing at the wall where the blue light of the pool stretched from the floor to the ceiling. "Not with you, not with me, and certainly not with knows that better than any of us."

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped. "I'm not just some cadet anymore."

There was no ire in his voice. Nothing snide. Nothing but the sorrow of someone who might actually understand what she had lost. But how could he even begin to know? Earth still orbited its sun. Its moon still called the tide. Humans still loved and laughed and cried and died and were buried in the dirt. Or their ashes were let loose upon the wind. _Real_ wind. On a real planet, where it still rained. A strand of silver hair fell from her bun and into her eyes, and she swept it behind her pointed ear.

"You're right. You may be a paladin of Voltron now," Allura said, her voice dangerously quiet. "But you still have no idea what the Galra are truly capable of."

Keith's dark eyes met hers. "I do, Allura."

"Is that so?" she asked.

"Because I knew Shiro before they found him."

Allura's lips pressed together ruefully. She had almost forgotten about before. Maybe it would have been better, if she could. She took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"I appreciate your concern, Keith. But this was not appropriate." Her eyes narrowed at him in the low light. "By any means."

She turned to leave, almost expecting Keith to argue.

He didn't.

The sound of her footsteps was all that followed her. She did not look back. She didn't have to; she could see Keith's shadow stretched across the floor, unmoving. The locker room doors parted, and his shadow vanished behind her. They had barely slid closed before Allura slumped against them on the other side. She shuddered in her suit; the metal was cold against her skin.

But not as cold as she felt thinking about Keith's eyes in the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Keith dragged the towel over his wet hair as he rounded the corner, letting out a long, deep breath. He had expected to feel relaxed after his cool down at the pool, but instead he still felt tight. Stiff. Tense. His sandals flopped loudly with each step he took down the hall, drowning out the tangled mess of his own thoughts.

He glanced over his shoulder, unperturbed by the trail of wet footprints that trailed behind him down the shining hall. Sure some robot come along to collect and recycle the water later, he slung his towel over his shoulders and continued towards his quarters, and his shower.

Keith knew he should have changed in the locker room, but he hadn't wanted to see her. Not again. Not for any longer than he had to. _What is wrong with you?_ He thought. _Allura's done nothing wrong. She just wants the same things you do_. Keith frowned.

Maybe that was the problem.

"Guys!" Pidge exclaimed. "Check this out!"

Keith paused, and suddenly the Castle of Lions was quiet. Too quiet. The door to Pidge's quarters was open, and they were perched on their bed, their face illuminated by the light of the tablet in their lap. Beside them, Hunk's eyes widened. Lance was stretched out over a bean bag chair on the floor, staring up at the ceiling; pretending not to care.

"Look!" Pidge pointed.

Hulk covered his mouth. "Oh. My. Goodness."

"Hey Keith," Lance glanced up at him.

"Hey," Keith said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his damp swim trunks. "What's going on?"

"Oh nothing," Pidge smirked. "And by nothing I mean nothing out of the ordinary because I was _totally RIGHT!"_

Keith felt his stomach lurch, but chalked the feeling up to working out then cooling down on an empty stomach. With a flick of their finger, Pidge threw a projection off their tablet and into the air before them.

 _Shiro: Allura. Where are you?_

"Did she respond?" Keith asked, despite how painfully dry his mouth had just become.

"Doesn't look like it," Pidge murmured, their glasses glazing over as they stared intently at the screen. "But I know for a fact they were in the holochamber together last night."

"How?" Keith demanded.

Pidge shrugged. "The mice were talking about it this morning." Beside them, Lance opened to his mouth to speak. "Yes, I can understand the mice, and _no_ , they will not make you a sandwich."

"It's okay, bud," Hunk rested a hand on Lance's shoulder. "I'll make you a sandwich."

Lance sighed, but didn't look too crestfallen. "Maybe when we get back home, Hunk."

That was the difference between him and the rest of the paladins. They missed home, when he had none. They yearned for the food and their families and their friends. There was nothing waiting for him there. Nothing but an empty house in the desert, covered in dust. What he wanted wasn't back on Earth; it was here, in the unknown stretching out into the universe.

He had hoped it would be different, off world. But the same loneliness trailed him even here, like a shadow. But he had hoped –

The look on Shiro's face as she extended her hand to him flashed in Keith's memories, and he felt something warm at the edge of his eye. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. Must have just been the chemicals in the pool. He would have to wear goggles next time.

"Shiro is one smooth operator," Hunk grinned.

"Shiro's not like that," Keith said, tugging at the ends of the towel draped around his neck.

"Not like what?" Pidge asked, quirking a brow.

Hunk snorted. "Not into pretty girls like Princess Allura?"

"Oh my _god_ ," Lance sighed dramatically as he flopped onto Pidge's bed. "I would give anything for Allura to be into me."

" _We know_ ," Hunk and Pidge said irritably in unison.

Unfazed, Lance just closed his eyes and drifted away to somewhere else; to an alternative universe where his unrequited feelings were met with open arms. Keith couldn't say he blamed him. He had always felt that whatever it was that he felt for Shiro would remain just that; unrequited. Shiro, who was older, and accomplished, and utterly out of reach had been his mentor. And Keith had just been a kid with a schoolboy crush. But they weren't on garrison grounds anymore. At the uncharted fringes of the universe, they were living their lives on the edge of the impossible every day.

And Keith wasn't a boy anymore.

"I mean," Pidge adjusted their glasses. "Do you think that they - "

It wasn't like this type of gossip had been uncommon back on base. The topic of conversation rarely strayed too far from who had been caught in a supply closet together, or which exes were paired together for drills that week. It had never bothered him before. But Shiro had always been with Adam, before.

Keith felt the heat rise in his face as Pidge continued on their tangent. Between them, Hunk laughed. His face settled into a frown. Keith's thoughts drifted to Allura extending her hand to Shiro again; how he reached for her. Keith balled his hands into fists around his damp towel. How she had paused at the doorway of the gym, her voice low. How Shiro had looked at her. How Allura's face had fallen, when she realized it was him, not Shiro that had come to the pool after their morning session.

"What's your problem, Keith?" Lance propped his chin up on his hand. "I mean, I want Allura to look at me like she looks at Shiro as much as the next guy, but come on," he sighed, sadly this time. "They just make sense."

"No," Keith snapped. "They don't."

"Woah, someone didn't get their wheaties this morning," Lance joked, but still, Keith saw how he recoiled from him. "Look, all I'm sayin' is -"

"They're adults and what they do with their time is really none of our business," Hunk winked.

"Whatever," Keith muttered. "I'm out of here."

"Keith!" Lance exhaled his name as his head lolled back over the beanbag chair. But Keith knew it was just an excuse to speak. His brow furrowed, but still, Lance continued. "Come on, don't be like that."

Keith exhaled sharply and stalked out of the doorway. If there had been a door to slam, he would have. But he knew where he could find the next best thing in the Castle of Lions.

The red paladin brushed his wet hair back from his forehead. Shifted his weight in his armor. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

The canon let off a shot without a sound, but still, Keith heard it. Maybe he felt it, the change in air pressure in the training room. It hardly mattered. He was far too furious to care about why. All he cared about was how he was going to hit his target.

The paladin spun on his heel, sliding his bayard out of the holster at his hip. Instead of extending a red blade, a pointed disk ejected itself from the weapon, and it hurtled through the air towards the clay target sailing toward the ceiling.

It hit.

The target exploded. Bits of black clay clattered to the white floor, and Keith smirked. The canon let another target loose. He closed an eye. Watched. Hit it anyway. Shards of smoking black clay hit the wall. The canon shot again. And again. The recoil of the red bayard in his hands felt good. Each time it let off a shot it sent a subtle shock of energy through his hands, up his arms. He could feel it, pressing on his chest. Keeping its contents in place.

"Computer!" Keith barked. "Evasive maneuvers."

The black oculus peering out of the white wall turned red.

The canon shot another target, this time, directly at Keith. He raised his bayard. Squeezed the trigger. Black clay laid smoldering at his feet. But there was already another target coming right at him. The paladin sidestepped it, and the target exploded against the wall behind him.

"Computer!" Keith cried, raising his bayard again. "Increase speed!"

Multiple targets hurdled toward him, but still, Keith's bayard landed. Explosions of red hit black in midair. His chest rose and fell beneath his armor. The targets blurred before Keith's eyes.

"You can do this," he murmured, bearing down on the grip of his bayard.

 _You can do this,_ he thought.

And suddenly he was sixteen again, at target practice with his squadron. _The sun was high that summer day. The earth hot and dry. You can do this, Keith thought. Show them what you can do. He had knocked more cans off the fences that snaked the property line back home in the desert than he could count. He shifted his weight. Pulled his shoulders back, and smirked. No problem._

 _Something moved at the end of the line. Keith's eyes widened. Shiro was standing past the last target, arms behind his back. For a moment, Keith almost could have sworn he was smiling. The cadet felt his heart rate spike and jerked his gaze back to the target line. Shiro was the only one who seemed to know what they were doing around here. He could shoot, fly, and - Keith swallowed. Lead. He did not allow himself to look back. Instead, he took a deep breath and told himself it was just nerves. Stupid jitters._

 _So he inhaled. Raised his pulse rifle, and closed an eye. Focused. No problem, Keith told himself silently. Just pretend it's a can._

" _Cadet."_

 _Keith froze._

" _Don't close your eye like that," Shiro said, quietly. He was standing so close that Keith could smell his aftershave._

 _Keith swallowed._

" _It'll improve your form."_

 _A drop of sweat rolled down his brow._

" _Yes, sir," he replied, though he was sure he had never called anyone Sir sincerely in his life. But there was something about Shiro that made him feel -_

 _Keith squeezed the trigger -_

And a black clay target exploded just before it hit him in the face.


	5. Chapter 5

The shape of his name formed on his lips, but no sound came. Shiro exhaled a sigh instead, and wondered if he had heard it through the door. His fingers tingled as he formed a fist. Clenching and unclenching his fingers was becoming a bad habit; it made him look unstable. But some days, it was the only way he could feel anything with his right hand.

"Can we talk about this?" Shiro asked, stopping himself as he reached for the door. His eyes darted over his shoulder down the hall of the barracks. "Please?"

"I meant what I said."

"Adam - "

"You've made your decision," Adam replied. "And I've made mine," the anger in his words was tempered by sadness. "What's there to talk about?

Shiro exhaled, and the heat of his whiskey neat from earlier rolled over his tongue and out of his mouth. He leaned into the door frame and wondered if he would have even been there if not for the liquid...whatever. Adam had already made his position perfectly clear, but Shiro's heart was so heavy in his chest that he couldn't hold it in. Not in his quarters. Not at the bar. Not here, at Adam's doorstep. He could feel it though, like a black hole at the edge of the horizon. Dark, and endless, and eager to swallow up everything he had ever cared about. But if it happened tonight at least it was late, and there was no one there to bear witness to what he was about to do. Takashi Shirogane could just give in. Collapse.

"Cracked" was the word they would use, when they spoke of it in hushed tones in the canteen.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," he said, forcing himself to keep his voice steady.

"I know," Adam replied, and Shiro felt his heart leap up into his throat.

If they were successful, the Kerberos crew would travel further into the galaxy than any other humans before them. Another first for Takashi Shirogane. But Shiro couldn't help feeling like this was the last time Adam would ever speak to him. That eclipsed everything. Every accolade. Every medal. Every first.

"I don't want to leave without - "

"I know, lo - " Adam interrupted. Then stopped himself. Tears crowded at Shiro's eyes at the word Adam could no longer bring himself to say. "But If you want to die alone up there there's nothing I can do to stop you."

"That's not what this is about!" Shiro's voice rose quickly, echoing down the empty corridor while this argument echoed in his memory.

 _You are more than all the missions, love. More than anything you've ever flown. Any record you've ever broken. You know you're more to me than that._

Not anymore.

Shiro swore at himself under his breath while he waited. There was nothing left to say; nothing left but imprecations. Not to himself. Not to Adam. Not if he didn't want - Shiro closed his eyes. The silence rose in the hallway like the tide. The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat echoing in his ears, as hollow as sound of the ocean trapped in a seashell. He took a deep breath and hung his head.

As Shiro raised his hand to reach for Adam, searing pain ripped through his right arm. He gasped, jerking his arm back to his body. Shiro blinked back the spots in his vision. Bursts of light exploded before his eyes, blurring out the hallway. He swore, loudly this time, reaching for the pills in his pocket. The bottle rattled in his hands as he grappled with the lid.

He thought he heard Adam sigh behind the door.

"You really should get that checked out before you leave," he said. "I know you won't. But you should."

"You know I can't do that," Shiro said, shakily. If the medical officers knew how aggressively his condition was progressing, there was no way they would clear him for the mission. No way in hell, or the heavens above. Not on this planet, or any other. The admiral already knew and it had almost cost him the Kerberos. And his career. He swallowed a pill dry.

"Adam, please. Just, let me in," Shiro's mouth was so dry. "Let's talk about this."

He was repeating himself. It was desperate and he knew it. But Adam knew this was all he had left. Adam had to know that _he_ was all he had left.

"If you go, I know I'm never going to see you again," the edge was gone from Adam's voice now. All the anger had eroded away as they spoke; only sorrow remained. "And I just can't live my life waiting for you to die."

Shiro slid the pills back into his pocket and took a deep breath. Relief began to wash over him and his failing system, but he still needed to rest his hand on the door to steady himself. One at a time, he pressed his fingers to the door, pushing every fingertip to the cold metal until he could feel each one again. It was a slow burn. Banging on Adam's door wouldn't do any good. It would only draw unwanted attention. And Adam had already made up his mind. But he had hoped -

"I'm sorry," Adam said. "But I can't help you if you won't help yourself."

Shiro raised his hand to knock on Adam's door, just one more time.

And something rapped at his door.

" _Goodbye, Takashi."_

They knocked again, and Shiro tumbled out of his cot in the Castle of Lions, tangled up in a mess of standard issue sheets. Some things never changed. The paladin hit the floor with a rasping gasp. The cold floor sent a shock up his exposed skin, leaving a prickling trail of goosebumps in its wake.

He rubbed his arms gingerly, though his prosthetic hand had no warmth to it, the friction helped with the goosebumps. He mopped the cold sweat at his brow with the hem of his tank top.

"Fuck," he murmured.

It had been so long since he had thought of Adam.

He wondered how he was. If he was still cutting his hair the same way. If he had ever gotten those new glasses, upgraded to that optical HMD he had been so excited about. If he still insisted his beef bourguignon always came out too dry. Shiro smiled sadly. He almost couldn't remember what Adam's laugh sounded like, now. But he could still remember the sound of his sigh through the door.

It was not the first time Shiro had dreamt of that night. When he was on the Kerberos Mission it had become a recurring nightmare. Adam's sad voice and locked door had haunted his dreams for months, until the Galra had found them. Life as a Galra slave was such a waking nightmare that even the nights spent dreaming of Adam's last words to him were a reprieve.

He leaned back against his cot and took a deep breath. But this was now, not then.

His visitor knocked again, gentler this time. Shiro blinked. Before they could knock again, he scrambled to right himself, throwing his sheets over his shoulder and back onto his cot. He swept his silver streak of hair back from his clammy brow and out of his face. Took another deep breath.

And -

Though the viewer he saw Allura standing standing in the hall in a pale pink nightgown, her hair piled high atop her head in a messy bun. She wasn't wearing any shoes. A smile crept up on him as his door slid open.

"You're up late," Shiro said, trying his best to sound casual.

"I need to talk to you," Allura met his gaze with diamond sharp blue eyes.

Shiro blinked.

"About Keith," she added, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Okay," Shiro segued into a soft chuckle. "Hello to you, too, Princess."

" _Hello_ , Allura said, glancing down at Shiro's shorts, only to blush. "'I mean, I'm sorry. I- I know I could," she exhaled. "I _should_ be observing better etiquette. I could have waited until tomorrow instead of barging in on you at this infernal hour of the night, for example. But –" She glanced back up at his face, but the diamond like clarity was gone from her eyes, shaken by something. Just what, Shiro was not sure he wanted to know.

"It's all right," Shiro tried not to frown, though this wouldn't be the first time Keith's behavior had been a late-night topic of conversation. He stifled a sigh. "Please, come in."

Allura stepped in and the door slid closed behind her. Shiro's quarters were sparse, but he offered her the chair by his bedside, sitting down on the rumpled sheets of his cot. He hoped that being in such close quarters while he was only wearing pajamas wouldn't present a problem.

"I'm so sorry," Allura stammered again, her eyes darting from his shorts to his unmade bed. "I woke you."

"It's fine, really," Shiro said, knuckling his eye with his prosthetic hand. He wanted to tell her it had been a relief. "Are you sure you don't want to meet somewhere more...spacious?" he asked, gesturing to the space shoebox he slept in. "At least the cafeteria has tea."

"No," Allura said, officiously. "This is a discussion we should have in private."

Shiro opened his mouth to speak, but Allura continued.

"Shiro. I know you and Keith have known one another for quite some time."

"A few years," he nodded, though with Keith it had always felt longer. Maybe it was because of all the late nights. Like this one. His thoughts drifted to Keith at fifteen. If Allura thought he was impossible _now -_ he almost had to laugh. _Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying_ , he thought, as the laugh turned to a smile on his lips.

"What's he done, Allura?"

"He confronted me at the pool."

Shiro stiffened. "About?"

"You."

 _Goddamnit, Keith_ , he thought. He knew the paladins had been listening when he walked Allura out of the gym. But he hadn't thought that any of them would ever have overstep like this. He knew Pidge and Hunk would be more than pleased to have something to talk about other than the malfunctioning dispensaries in the cafeteria. And he was sure Lance would be happy to give _someone_ an earful of his woes, but he had assumed that it would just be the mice. Shiro had never thought that any of them would take it up with Allura directly. But Keith - _goddamnit, Keith,_ he thought.

Shiro mussed his tuft of white hair. The last time Keith had blackslid like this was years ago. When he and Adam had moved in together.

Allura swept the skirt of her nightgown aside as she settled into the chair. Shiro leaned back on his pillow. He had a feeling this conversation wasn't going to be a short one.

"I'm sorry, Princess, I'd offer you a tea, or coffee, but - " _I don't have any of those things_ , he thought, wishing he had some whiskey to offer her instead. Though perhaps that was more for him than Allura, if he were being entirely honest with himself.

"Another time, Shiro," Allura waved a hand with a dismissive grace that almost made Shiro smile. Even in a nightgown with no shoes on she was still so regal. "But I need to know _why_ Keith would say - "

"Keith says a lot of things when he's upset," Shiro answered instinctively. "What was it this time?"

Allura scrunched her skirts in her hands.

"You can tell me, Allura," he wanted to reach out, put his hand on hers. "It's okay."

"I know," Allura closed her eyes. "It's just that - " she stopped.

When she opened her eyes she could not look at him. Her chest rose and fell sharply. Shiro's expression hardened. What had Keith done?

"Just that what?" he asked.

"He insinuated that I was too tough on you this morning."

Shiro tilted his head to the side and waited for Allura to continue. She didn't. So he took a breath. Allura was telling him the truth, but not the whole truth. Keith was the only paladin that knew about his condition. The only one that had a window into his past prior to Voltron. Pidge hadn't come to the Garrison until after the Kerberos Mission had failed. When Shiro was an instructor, Hunk's focus was on his engineering coursework. Lance had always been too preoccupied with trying to prove himself to pay attention to anyone else's private life.

Keith was the only one who knew the truth about Shiro.

He met her gaze. "Do you think you were too rough on me?"

"That's beside the point," Allura said, hurriedly.

"And that's not an answer to my question," Shiro replied, leaning over the edge of his cot. "Do _you_ think you were too rough on me?"

"No," the princess sat up straight. "I don't."

He appreciated that about Allura; she never held back. He often wondered why she had not been a paladin herself. She possessed all the right qualities. Strength. Speed. Valor. He looked her up and down and smiled sadly at her. Perhaps the only reason she wasn't a paladin was because someone was trying to protect her, too.

"Then what's the problem?" he asked, as gently as he could.

"The problem is that a paladin of Voltron should not be threatening the last line of Altea."

"No, he shouldn't. He shouldn't be threatening _anyone_ on the team. But Keith can be a little overzealous," Shiro rubbed his eyes. "A little too overprotective."

"We are a team," Allura said, sharply. "We protect each other. Not threaten one another."

"I know," Shiro agreed. Though Allura seemed unassured. She was still sitting straight up in the chair, fingers bunching the skirt of her nightgown. "What's the matter?"

"You're acting like - " Allura's voice got a little louder.

"Like what?" he asked, keeping his tone low.

"Like this isn't _unusual!_ " she huffed.

"Sadly it's not. Not for Keith anyway. I mean," he replied. "The day I met the kid he stole my car. He's getting better, though," Allura raised a brow and Shiro shrugged a little sheepishly. "I promise."

"I'll take your word for it," Allura said, flatly. And then, she slumped over, burying her face in her hands. "I'm sorry. It's just - "

"You're shaken up," said Shiro. "I understand." He sounded calmer than he felt. What had Keith said that had rattled her so hard? "So," he ighed. "What did he say?"

"It's not what he said," when she looked up, the princess' lips were drawn in a harsh line across her face. "It's how he said it."

Shiro nodded. Keith was brash, but if that wasn't making him stupid, he was intelligent enough to play a good semantics game. When he wasn't throwing punches at other students, Keith had spent most of his time at the Galaxy Garrison bending the rules, not breaking them. Much to the ire of the rest of the faculty.

"If what Keith did made you uncomfortable, it's unacceptable. I'll have a talk with him."

"Thank you," Allura smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. "But I just don't understand."

"What?" Shiro looked up at her. Even in the harsh, cool lighting of the cabin, Allura's skin was so warm and soft. Just like his. Shiro forced the thought from his mind as she shifted her weight in the chair and a tendril of silver hair tumbled out of her bun. She brushed it behind a pointed ear, and Shiro watched her shiver. He wondered if her pointed ears were sensitive. Then forced himself to lean back into his cot.

"What does Keith think he's protecting you from?" she asked.

"Nothing," Shiro said, too quickly. He sunk deeper into his meager stack of flat pillows. Allura blinked, and he tried to laugh it off. "It's nothing," he smiled. "Really."

"Shiro," Allura placed her hand on his shoulder. "You can tell me," she smiled. Then she shrugged. The gesture wasn't dismissive this time. "As you said; it's okay."

The paladin's gaze drifted down to his Galra prosthetic. He flexed each finger, one by one. He remembered each finger on Adam's door, pressing, one by one. Remembered how it felt to be so close he could reach out and touch him, if they hadn't already drifted worlds away. But he couldn't remember when he had lost that hand. Or that arm.

There was a part of him that wanted to tell Allura everything he could no longer remember. How there were days that he hated the body they gave him, even though it saved him. How there were days before when all he could feel was his body devouring itself. Followed only by the days when he couldn't feel anything at all. How all he could feel was how easy it would be for the weapon his body had become to rip everything else apart, now. And how he wasn't sure which was worse. Or which frightened him more.

And then, her hand was on his. Shiro's wide eyes darted to Allura's. They were as sad as her smile.

"Or you don't have to tell me," she said, quietly. "That's all right, too."

His prosthetic fingers intertwined with hers. "Thank you."

They sat, Shiro at the edge of his cot, and Allura in the chair, her hand holding his prosthetic one. He could feel the warmth of her body, the softness of her skin. He wondered what she felt as her fingers traced the metal that they had grafted to his body. He wanted to draw her closer; ask her to touch parts of him that were still his. As if any of it was.

Shiro shifted his weight and the sheets crinkled between them.

"It's late," Allura exhaled, withdrawing her hand back into her lap. "I should go."

"Of course," Shiro said. "Let me show you out." He gestured to the door, which was barely beyond his reach. "Wouldn't want you to get lost," he added.

Allura smiled. And as she let herself laugh, she opened up like a flower under the light of the sun. _Still got it_ , Shiro thought, allowing himself a little self-satisfaction.

They stood, suddenly very careful not to touch one another. Allura was still, and stiff while Shiro attempted to flatten himself against the wall. She made an effort to excuse herself as he tried to turn around in the doorway without touching her again, but instead he stepped right on the hem of her nightgown. Allura kept walking, but her nightgown stayed still, trapped by Shiro for just long enough for a strap to slide down her shoulder. He swallowed.

The door slid open and the paladin exhaled a sigh of relief that he hoped Allura did not hear; she sidestepped him out into the hall with an almost impossible grace.

The corner of Shiro's mouth curved into a smile as she turned to walk away.

She paused.

"What?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Nothing," he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts.

Allura crossed her arms over her chest. " _Something_ must be making you smile like that."

"I just had no idea how - "

He watched as she bit her lip. "How _what_?"

"How short you were," he shrugged.

"Oh Shiro, I assure you, " she leaned in, so close he could touch her. "What I lack in height, I make up for in stature."

Shiro laughed. As his shoulders began to shake, a broad grin broke over his face. Allura was smiling too. And though he was more light years away from Earth than he could even begin to count, home didn't feel so far away anymore.

Without another word, the princess leaned up and wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders. All of a sudden, they were still. _Thank you_ , she said, though Shiro wasn't sure if she had spoken. He felt her words, but was not sure if he heard them. There was something more that she could not say. Something he could feel between them, holding her back. But he slid his arms around her waist to embrace her anyway.

He breathed her in, savoring how she smelled; floral, with a hint of salt. From the pool. His stomach began to twist as he realized that he and Allura hugging one another in the hall would be all over the security feeds. The rest of the residents of the Castle of Lions would know all about this by morning. If they didn't already.

But then her cheek was against his, and it no longer mattered. It was late, and there was no one to bear witness to what he wanted to do but everyone. Let it make Coran's jaw drop. Or the mice titter. Or Pidge let that "I knew it" look creep over their face. Or Hunk lose it. Or Lance mope. Or Keith -

"May I ask you a question?" Allura's voice was so soft Shiro wasn't quite sure he had even heard her speak. If she had not felt her lips against his ear he might not have heard her at all.

"Of course," he said, forcing his voice to stay steady.

He wanted to give her every truth, even the ones he could no longer remember. All she had to do was ask.

"Has Keith ever seemed," she paused.

Shiro could have sworn he felt her heart beating against his.

"Inhuman, to you?"

Shiro broke their embrace to look her in the eyes. "No."

"Oh," the princess said flatly, withdrawing into the hall. "Well, that's good. I suppose."

Admittedly, Keith was _not_ the paladin Shiro was hoping Allura would be asking him about. He leaned back into the the doorway. Something about the way she shrank away from him and the answer to her question told him she was still shaken up. He told himself he would talk to Keith about it tomorrow. Clear the air. But still, he frowned. "Is there something else you want to tell me, Allura?"

"Yes," she smiled, but it seemed forced.

His dark eyes met her blue ones.

"Good night!" she chirped

"That's it?" Shiro asked. "No explanations? No other leading questions?" He rested his head against the doorframe, trying to sound casual instead of confused. Or concerned.

"I suppose that depends," Allura glanced back at him as she walked away. She was smiling again, but this time, it was flirtatious, not forced.

Shiro arched a brow. "On?"

Her grin got a little wider. "On when you ask me to have tea with you."

A/N: I thought we could all use some good old fashioned awkward Space Mom and Space Dad. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks so much for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

"You need some ice for that?"

Keith looked up from pushing his breakfast around with his spoon. Hunk stood on the other side of the table, holding a bowl of green breakfast goop in each hand. The yellow paladin smiled at him.

"I'm fine," Keith frowned.

"What was that?" Hunk asked, leaning in. The tail of his bandana slipped over his shoulder, and swung dangerously close to the mound of green goo Keith had made in the bowl before him.

"I said I'm fine!" Keith snapped. Then sighed. "Thanks though."

"No problem, man," Hunk shrugged.

Keith watched Hunk saunter away to join Pidge at a neighboring table with his one good eye. The other was so bruised from his mishap in the training room the night before that he could not even open it. The circumference of his right eye socket was black, tinged with a deep blue that made his face look like a fruit that had gone bad. He wondered how long it would take Lance to ask him if he was going to get a "sweet eyepatch for that". Keith absentmindedly scratched the side of his nose and winced. He couldn't put an eyepatch over this even if he wanted to.

 _It's your own damn fault, you know_ , he thought, gazing into the churning green abyss of his breakfast. _You shouldn't have let yourself get distracted like that. Not by_ \- the doors to the cafeteria slid open. Keith's head instinctively jerked up.

His eye widened as Shiro walked in, tall and lean and perfectly trim in his armor. Keith quickly looked down at the bowl in front of him, but not before he saw of Shiro's expression crumpled in disappointment at the sight of him. It wasn't like this was the first time Keith had gotten himself a black eye. Shiro and Adam had patched him up after plenty of fights. He scoffed into his breakfast. But never after a fight he'd lost with a computer.

"You did this to yourself," he muttered, forcing a mouthful of the Altean protein paste down his throat. It wasn't half as bitter as his words. That much was helpful.

Shiro sat down on the bench across from him, but Keith said nothing, just shoveled another spoonful of into his mouth.

"What happened yesterday after training?" Shiro asked.

"It's fine," Keith mumbled between big, sticky bites, refusing to meet Shiro's gaze. "I'm fine. Really."

"Keith," Shiro's brow raised, nonplussed. "I'm not talking about your face."

Keith tried to swallow. A deluge of swears was stymied only by the glob of breakfast goo that had gummed up his tongue. His mind raced to how fear had spread across Allura's features in the dark. He felt his heart begin to thump beneath his armor at the thought of his own face, how he had felt it, twisting. He had felt it start in his eyes, something inside grasping at him, pulling itself up from inside him by the threads of his own fear. And anger.

He hadn't meant for it to happen. Not like that. All he had wanted was for Allura to back off. That was all. He tried to swallow.

"Can we talk about this later?" Keith choked, forcing his breakfast down his throat.

"If you want to finish your breakfast," Shiro said, calmly. "I can wait."

The red paladin pinched his nose as he felt a headache coming on, and a bolt of electric agony seared through his face. He could not suppress the wince that made his face crumple beneath his hand.

"Come on," Shiro said, quietly.

He got up first. Keith followed, abandoning his breakfast at the table. He was sure he would catch flack for it later. Though some small part of him hoped that maybe, just _maybe_ Hunk would clean up his mess. It was promptly cutoff by the part of him that knew the truth. No one was going to clean up his messes for him. He glanced up as the doors slid open.

Not even Shiro.

Keith slid into the hall behind him, his one good eye darting down the corridor. They were alone. For now. Shiro tilted his head to the right and they hung a corner. Keith tread lightly, hoping no one would hear. One of the many lessons of all those long nights at the Garrison. Keep your step light. Your breath tight. Always be on the lookout for -

Shiro stopped, but not before Keith did. His nose jammed into Shiro's armored shoulder and he stifled a groan of agony.

"What the - " he hissed.

Keith opened his one good eye to see Shiro paused at another corridor corner. Shiro did not speak, only held up a hand behind him. He was so close. So close that if Keith swayed to the left, Shiro's hand would graze his hip.

"You okay?" Shiro asked, glancing over his shoulder.

"Fine," Keith mumbled miserably, looking at the ground.

"Let's go."

The hallways of the Castle of Lions stretched on and on into the dark. Where Shiro went, Keith followed, the hole in his gut growing bigger with each step. Just when Keith was sure there were no more corners for Shiro to whip him around (on this floor), Shiro disappeared. Keith sighed, and dug his hands into the pockets of his armor.

And then his one good eye widened.

The door they had walked through led them to a room didn't even know the castle had. They were standing on an observation deck before a viewing window stretched from floor to ceiling. Shiro pressed a finger to a keypad on the wall, and the room fell into darkness. Keith's eyes dilated in on the stars. Constellations glittered at the edge of an orange gaseous nebula, brilliantly bright against the black expanse of space stretching on before them. _Wow,_ Keith thought, as the word reshaped his mouth, but no sound came. The nebula's orange light stretched across the floor, illuminating Shiro's face.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Keith shrugged. "Until it collapses in on itself."

A gentle chuckle escaped Shiro, filling up the room. Keith chewed his lip, trying not to smile at the sound. No matter how serious Shiro was, he had always been able to make him laugh. On occasion, anyway. "This can't be what brought me here for," Keith said, flatly.

"I thought you might like to see it," Shiro was the one shrugging now. "It reminded me of the Spider Nebula."

There were several spider nebulas, and if Keith was being honest, he would have admitted that he had no idea which one Shiro was referring to. Keith forced himself to look at the nebula instead of Shiro. He had to hand it to him, this observation deck was quite a find. Keith hadn't heard any of the other paladins talking about it. It hadn't even come up in a passing comment from Coran, whose grandfather had designed the Castle of Lions himself. Keith took a deep breath. There was no telling what secrets the castle kept.

A small part of him wondered if this would be one of their secret places. Like the dunes overlooking the mesas. Keith closed his eyes, and could almost feel the castle's engines thrumming beneath his feet. And then he could feel their speeders, vibrating over the sand. He could feel the power of that engine it in his bones, electric and racing up the spine guard of his jacket. He opened his eyes and looked back at Shiro. Or maybe that was just what it felt like to stand so close to him.

"Allura didn't mention anything about giving you a black eye," Shiro said. Though he smiled, his tone was mirthless.

"Oh," Keith blinked. "This wasn't Allura. It was - " he stopped himself. This was already embarrassing enough. "What was it that Allura mentioned, exactly?"

"That you made her uncomfortable," Shiro replied, somberly. "What was said between you two is just that - between you two. But we're a team, Keith. We all need to act like it."

Keith crossed his arms over his chest. "Just because we're a team doesn't mean we all _love_ each other."

"No one has to _love_ anyone," Shiro stiffened. "But we do need to show one another mutual respect and courtesy."

Keith swallowed. He hated when Shiro was right. But he usually was. "Look, Shiro, I'm sorry -"

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to," Shiro said, simply, without anger or ire. His gaze remained trained on the observation window.

He did not look at Keith. But Keith looked back at him, watching the orange light of the nebula dance across his face. It highlighted his cheek bones. Brought warmth to his dark eyes. Illuminated his adam's apple, trailing down his throat to where his skin disappeared beneath his armor.

Keith shifted his weight. "I know."

"So you'll apologize to Allura then?" Shiro raised a brow, but did not look away from the nebula.

"I didn't say that." Keith looked at the ground. "I get that I made Allura uncomfortable, but what I said wasn't out of line."

"Keith," Shiro's brow furrowed in the dark. "Whatever you did say made her upset. We're a team. It's unacceptable to threaten -"

"I didn't threaten her."

Shiro held up his prosthetic hand, but Keith continued.

"And I don't agree with what she's doing." Keith took a step forward, into the light. It looked warm, but it brought no warmth into the room. It was just as cold as the rest of the universe. "If she knew what I know about y-" _You_. He almost made it.

"I told you about my condition in confidence," Shiro cut him off as he turned to face him. "And I expect it to stay that way. But that's not what we're here to talk about. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you agree with the princess or not. There is a chain of command here, and I need you to respect that."

"Excuse me?" Keith sputtered, blinking back at Shiro with his one good eye.

"If you disagree with Allura, I'm sure there's a more productive way for you to address that. After you apologize to her."

Shiro turned to face Keith. The look on his face made Keith's stomach sink. Shiro's mouth was a hard, unforgiving line across his face. His arms were crossed over the breastplate of his armor. "Please don't make me repeat myself again, Paladin."

Keith shrunk back into the shadow of the unlit room. _Is that all I am to you?_ Keith thought. _Just another cadet under your command_? He looked up at Shiro, and his breath caught in his chest. But then he straightened himself, refusing to let his knees buckle. He had to tell him.

Shiro had to know by now. After all those long nights, and how he had never knocked on anyone's door but his. The sideways glances at target practice. The words that were always crowding the tip of his tongue, threatening to explode between them, shattering all the perfect silences they had shared watching the sun set over the dunes.

"I - " Keith began.

"Paladins!" Allura's voice rang out over the intercom. "A Galran ship has been detected."

Keith's eyes met Shiro's in the dark. He watched, waiting for the expression to shift on Shiro's face. It didn't.

"We'll be in their sights soon."

"Come on," Shiro ordered.

Keith nodded, but said nothing. What more was there to say?

Shiro advanced across the viewing chamber, passing Keith with only a few strides. Keith fell in line behind him. As the door slid open, Shiro sighed. Then glanced back over his shoulder.

"This conversation isn't over."


	7. Chapter 7

Somehow Shiro found the process of hurdling himself into space less unnerving than telling Keith what to do.

But not by much.

But flying - that Shiro knew how to do.

There was no preflight checklist for boarding the Black Lion. No access hatch lockdown. No booster systems check. No flight dynamic path modeling or pressure system tests. All he had to do was board, and she knew. Shiro strapped in to his seat and tapped the dashboard to bring the navigational system online. At the edge of the star map radiated a purple blip. Shiro frowned. It was still on the other side of the nebula.

They still had time.

As he leaned back and let Black glide toward the hangar opening, he closed his eyes, and there Keith was. _Excuse me?_ His words rang out, sharp in the silence of the Black Lion's cockpit. The look on his face flooded Shiro's memory. How Keith's face had radiated white hot heat. How he could hear it in his voice, the instinctual recoil from something that burned. Or betrayed. Shiro's stomach lurched, and he exhaled sharply through his nose. Tried to tell himself it was just pre-launch jitters. Just his body adjusting to the shift in art-grav levels and the change in air supply sources. Not guilt.

 _The team looks to you for leadership_ , he inhaled. _You need to lead_. The launch bay door opened. _Even when it hurts._

"If this turns into another Adam situation..." he mumbled to himself as the Black Lion's engines began to roar. _I don't know what I'm going to do._ And then he told himself, _what you're going to do now is focus on this launch. You know what to do._ It was an anchoring thought in a sea of uncertainty.

The Black Lion lifted off the hangar floor and Shiro tried to release the tension he felt gripping his muscles. Shiro had completed countless launches. Simulated, scheduled, as planned and emergency. If it could be named, Shiro had probably managed to get something off the ground in it. But there was always an instant just before every launch - the moment before Shiro began to fly, when he felt like he was going to fall. Or worse; fail. The paladin took a deep breath as his lion plunged into space.

At first space always felt perfectly infinite and painfully claustrophobic, all at once. It never failed to astound him.

He took another breath, and his eyes opened to the field of stars before him. Black swung around to face the castle, and he watched as the other lions flew out of the launch bay. Blue. Green. Yellow. And finally, Red.

"All right everyone," Shiro exhaled. "Sound off."

The yellow paladin's face was the first to appear on screen. "Hunk here."

"Lance here," the blue paladin grinned.

"Pidge here," the green paladin chimed in. "And happy to report," Pidge's smiling face illuminated the video com as they held up a single finger. "The Galra vessel is just a scout ship."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Shiro said, waiting for Keith to come on screen. He didn't. Shiro frowned as he continued. "Scout ships bring -"

"BIG SHIPS!" Lance interjected with gusto. "With BIG GUNS."

"You got it," Shiro nodded. He glanced at the video com on his dashboard. All of the paladins were on screen but Keith. "Paladins," Shiro cleared his throat. "Make sure your systems are all online. We may need to form Voltron."

"But isn't that sort of - " Lance began.

"Overkill?" Pidge finished.

Shiro frowned.

"I mean," Hunk interjected. "It's just a scout ship."

"Just because it's reading as a scout vessel doesn't mean it's _actually_ a scout vessel," Shiro said, calmly. "But whatever it is, if it's Galra, our objective is to take it out."

"I could activate Green's stealth mode," Pidge suggested, their face lighting up at the prospect of using their lion's unique tech. "Get us a closer look at what we're up against. Though it's probably not far off from this model."

Shiro surveyed the model of a Galra scout ship that Pidge shared on screen. The turnaround made it look small, built for speed and stealth; not combat. His eyes darted over its sleek carapace, searching for any signs of artillery. If his time with the Galra had taught him anything, it was that underestimating Galra forces, and their tech, would always be a losing game. His prosthetic fingers curled at the edge of the pilot seat armrest.

"Or-or-or," Hunk grinned. "We could cut through that nebula and wait for the scout ship to swing around. The supersonic shocks rolling off the white dwarf at its center should jam the craft's sensors long enough for us to get a jump on the scout."

Pidge's glasses glazed over. "Or instead of entering hazardous terrain, I could just use - "

"Or we could just use Yellow's canon and blow it up," Lance shrugged.

The paladins froze on their video screens. Shiro sat up a little straighter in his pilot's chair. It was always a little unnerving when Lance was right.

"Occam's razor," Pidge grinned sheepishly. "What a concept."

Hunk chortled while Lance stared blankly back at them over the vid comm. Keith's video link still wasn't up. A red box blinked where his face should have been. Shiro would have frowned, if all the other paladins eyes hadn't been on him. Shiro averted his gaze from the comm screen and out into space, where the nebula glowed in the distance. There was no sign of the Galra ship, but he knew that wouldn't last long.

"All good points," Shiro replied. "But it sounds like navigating the nebula and taking advantage of the element of surprise to take out the scout ship is going to be our best course of action." He watched the smile on Pidge's face falter. "That was good thinking on the recon, Pidge, but I don't want the scout ship to get eyes on the Castle. It's just a little too close for comfort right now."

"Understood," Pidge nodded. "But if we're going to cut through the nebula, we would need to form Voltron, no question. We're flying into the field of a white dwarf. The winds generated by those supersonic shocks combined with the dust of the nebula's core could rip the lions apart, if any of them fell into a hot pocket."

Hunk let out a long, wistful sigh. " _Hot pockets._ "

"My readings of the nebula are showing some hot...areas with extremely high temperatures. So just like the microwavable "meal"," Pidge paused to make air quotes, "these will definitely make your tongue disintegrate. Along with the rest of your body." They flicked a thermal map of the nebula on screen.

"It's risky," Shiro murmured. "But if we form Voltron I think we can pull it off." He looked to the vidcomm screen. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," the team echoed, without Keith.

Shiro stifled a sigh of relief. He didn't need any more of the paladins pissed off at him. He activated the digital keyboard with Black's dashboard. Just as he was beginning to type a private message to Keith -

"Why aren't you online, Keith?" Pidge asked.

"Don't be embarrassed, man," Hunk smiled, kindly. "We all know you've had worse shiners than this one."

"Oh come on," Lance chimed in. "Don't be so vain. I'm sure you look fine." He arched a brow. "I mean, not as fine as _me_ , but - "

Keith's bruised, frowning face appeared onscreen and Lance let out a startled sound of disgust. "Nevermind."

For once, Shiro was grateful for peer pressure. "Focus, everyone," he said firmly, but not unkindly.

"Paladins," Allura's voice was cool and calm. "Any updates?"

"Yes, Princess," Shiro responded, grateful she hadn't activated a video link. Keith's face was already enough of a distraction. He didn't want Allura jumping to any conclusions. To anyone already acquainted with the red paladin, it was hardly a surprise that he had done this to himself. But Allura didn't know Keith. Not well. Not yet, anyway. Shiro made a mental note to work on some team building exercises outside of their run in the mill life or death scenarios. But that would have to wait.

"Pidge has identified the Galra craft as a scout ship and Hunk is advising that the nebula will afford us an some cover, but we'll need to form Voltron to withstand the extreme conditions inside it. We should be able to cut off the scout before it can get the Castle of Lions in its sights," he finished.

Onscreen, the paladins all nodded. Even Keith.

"Sounds like a plan," Allura replied. "The Castle of Lions will hold its position to avoid detection."

"Princess," Pidge added. "Once we're inside the nebula the atmospheric conditions may impede our ability to communicate with the Castle of Lions."

Shiro nodded. "We'll maintain open communication as long as we can."

"Understood," Allura replied. "I'll see if there's anything we can do to boost the castle's communication array."

"Thank you, Allura," Shiro nodded again, forgetting she could not see him.

"I'll leave you to it, Shiro," he could almost hear the smile in her voice as she said his name.

Pidge, Hunk and Lance glanced at one another over video. Keith's bruised face looked straight on, frozen in a frown. It was a miracle he had been able to shove his swollen face into his helmet at all. If other expressions were too much effort, that suited Shiro just fine. At least he was in uniform.

"Save it for later, guys," said Shiro. "We're forming Voltron. Now."

The lions ascended the stars.

Shiro closed his eyes under his helmet. Once the team had learned to form Voltron, nothing in his life had ever felt so effortless. Despite their differences, each of the paladins came together to become something bigger and more powerful than they ever could be alone. Voltron was more than a mere sum of their parts. When they formed Voltron, they were whole.

He opened his eyes and gazed out at the stars before them, and wondered if Keith found comfort when they were together. Like this.

Shiro glanced at Keith's video feed. He wondered if he was okay. If he had been too hard on him. If he was going to say what Shiro thought he was going to say, on the observation deck. He took a deep breath.

"Scout ship is about two hundred klicks out," Pidge said. "They're moving slowly but they're moving."

"Activate thrusters," Shiro ordered.

Voltron soared through the field of stars towards the nebula. The paladins were silent, reviewing their lions' respective systems and the Galra ship stats. As the orange light before them grew brighter, doubt began to leak in through the cracks in Shiro's resolve. He brought up a private chat line for the second time that flight. His lips parted as his fingers hovered over the keyboard.

 _Maybe I'm the one who owes you an apology_ , he typed.

He hadn't even allowed Keith to explain himself. But maybe that was because it hadn't mattered. It never had. Shiro had never asked; never required Keith to explain himself. Shiro had always just accepted that Keith was doing his best, before. He thought of Allura wringing her hands in her lap in the chair by his bedside. He had told himself over and over that there was nothing between them, but there she was in the middle of the night. In her nightgown. His thumb absently traced the edge of his forefinger, where her hand had intertwined with his.

Was he being hard on Keith because of her?

Shiro frowned. Keith's behavior had been a point of contention between him and Adam more times than Shiro cared to admit. But once Keith was spending more nights in his own cot than their couch, that tension had faded into another fracture entirely. Shiro sighed. The place where his prosthetic met his skin tingled psychosomatically. He refused to scratch it. Allura was not Adam. That was then, not now.

Though the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. _Have things changed?_ Shiro wondered, staring at the cursor flickering at the end of the message he hadn't sent. As Galra tech that he knew he would never understand allowed him to flex his finger over the cursor, he almost had to laugh. He had changed, all right. Maybe the real problem was that Keith hadn't. Not enough. Not yet.

Progress not perfection was a mantra that had gotten him through the better part of Keith's junior year at the Garrison. He had offered Keith more second chances than he could have ever counted. He had defended him. Advised him. Believed in him. And he still did. But this was not a drill. This was not a sim. The purple light flickered at the edge of the screen.

 _This is enemy space, and out here we live, fly and die as a team_ , he told himself. And Shiro wasn't going to lose anyone else.

He closed the chat window.

"All right everyone," Shiro said, his eyes narrowing surveying Voltron's field of vision. "In order to pull this off, we're going to have to destroy this scout ship on site. If it spots us and transmits our location back to the main fleet we're in for a way harrier fight than this one."

"Big ships. Big guns," Lance flipped his visor down. "Got it."

"And no one wants that," Hunk added.

"Agreed," Pidge said.

" _Agreed_ ," Shiro echoed.

Keith remained silent.

"We'll be entering the nebula soon," Pidge tapped their console. "Bridge, do you copy?"

"Loud and clear!' Coran's voice rang out over the audio link.

"Any luck with reconfiguring the Castle's communication array?" Shiro asked.

"Allura's at it in the crystal chamber," Coran chirped.

"We're testing different crystal frequencies to see if we can bolster our communication signal," Allura added. "We don't want to lose you out there."

Shiro's breath caught in his chest at Allura's last words. Allura didn't want to lose him. _Of course Allura doesn't want to lose you_ , he thought disparagingly. _Or any of the paladins. Then Voltron would be lost._ But there was a part of him that knew it was more than that. It wasn't just about Voltron. Not anymore.

"Copy that," Shiro replied, keeping it curt. The paladins needed to focus. _He_ needed to focus. "Paladins, brace for rough atmospheric conditions."

"Shields up," said Hunk.

The thermal map of the nebula reappeared on Shiro's screen as Pidge began to speak. "Remember everyone, avoid the hot - " they cleared their throat. "Spots. The hot spots. The areas marked the darkest red should be avoided by our flight pattern if at all possible."

"But at least our projected rendezvous point isn't close to any of them," Hunk shared a map with coordinates marked at the edge of the nebula onscreen.

"But we could still get creamed by some sort of space sonic boom, right?" Lance asked.

"Yes," Pidge replied, matter-of-factly. "And don't forget about the space dust, which won't be the immediate cause of anyone's death of course, but could very well jam our comm and navigational systems, leaving us marooned in space until we all die of dehydration."

Lance frowned. "The more we talk about this the worse it gets."

"At least we'll die of dehydration before we die of starvation," Pidge grinned.

"Not with all the hot _pockets_ in this nebula," added Hunk.

"The moment has passed, Hunk," Lance sighed. "The moment has passed."

Voltron's thrusters propelled them into the nebula's field. Shiro's muscles tensed as he braced himself for - no perceptible change in flight conditions. His eyes darted to the dashboard, but it showed no changes. Shiro breathed a small sigh of relief. Everything was just...orange. It was not doing Keith's bruised face any favors, but otherwise, Voltron seemed unaffected. For now.

"I've got it," Lance smirked, glancing from side to side before splaying his fingers over the screen. "Hacker voice."

Pidge's shoulders slumped. "Oh please don't."

" _We're in_."

The green paladin groaned. "Less than one hundred klicks from the projected rendezvous point."

"Bridge, do you copy that?" Shiro paladins paused, waiting for a response. Shiro's test tightened the way it always did before take off. When space felt impossibly endless, and too tight to make any movement at all. All at once.

Voltron continued its course, and the light of the nebula's white dwarf star was becoming so bright it almost burned. Shiro squinted as he adjusted the visor settings on his helmet. As his visor transitioned to filter out the light, his eyes opened again. Everything was still a deeply saturated orange. Shiro surveyed the nebula field before them. Their path was still clear.

There were no debris that he could see. Not yet. Maybe they were far enough out from the core not to worry about encountering any dust on their flight path. He glanced to the edge of Voltron's field of vision. Far beyond what any of them could see with their eyes alone shone the hot core of what was once a star, expending all that remained of its energy before it died; the white dwarf. A star's fate was no different than anything else; they all burned out, eventually. Shiro's prosthetic fingers twitched at the edge of the dashboard.

"Do you think they heard us?" Hunk asked, quietly.

"Bridge," Shiro repeated. "Do you copy?"

"C-copy that," Coran's voice glitched back over the comm link.

Pidge looked up at Shiro over the edges of their spectacles. "We're not even in that deep," they murmured. The confidence they had exuded while discussing all the ways that the crew could eat it in space was gone, now.

"Let's hope Allura can get the Castle's crystal on a different vibrational frequency then. If anyone can do it, it's her and Coran," Shiro said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "But if they can't, we stick to the plan."

He looked met the somber paladins' eyes onscreen. "We get in, get out, and get back to the Castle."

"Should be a piece of cake," said Keith.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading and for the encouraging comments! I've been considering the characterization in this fic as I've picked it back up, and I know Keith is a...bit of a hot head in this one. The truth is, I started writing this WAY back - before Lotor, before the Castle of Lions was destroyed, before, well quite a bit happened in the show. I decided to proceed with where I started, and see where it took us. I'm enjoying the opportunity to delve more into the team's interpersonal lives, and the bonding that got them through some of their major development arcs that hit them down the line in the show. Thanks for coming along for the ride.


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